Your Views

Keep your e-mails pouring in, it's good to know that there are lots of you out there with views and opinions.

To help you work out what is what, are now little icons to help you see biscuit related themes. And now you can see at a glance which are the most contested subjects via this graph (requires Flash 6.0 plugin).

Your e-Mails

Hello nicey, have you or any of your readers/web site afficianados tried a tunnocks tea cake fried in bacon fat? Although the chocolate will start to melt in the heat submerging the biscuity base for a few seconds results in a surprisingly moreish snack, and removes the ethical obstacle many feel at eating vegetarian food.

Nicey replies: Good grief! Presumably you have done this and lived to tell the tale. However, given your contorted assertions about vegetarian food, the signs are that the blood which is struggling to make through your clogged arteries might not be getting enough oxygen to your brain.

Did you catch the Tunnocks factory on the telly yesterday? I can't remember which channel it was on, but there were some wonderful ladies involved in the manufacture of the teacackes, and there was film of the chocolate being poured over the top of the biscuit/mallow part - most instructive (actually I think it was supposed to be about the election, but I didn't take any notice of that bit). Marvellous. Let's have more biscuit manufacturing shown on TV, far more instructive than politics. Have you considered asking the leaders of the parties for their opinions on tea and biscuits? I think it could help the Nation decide next week (now maybe if they offered cups of tea and sit downs at the polling stations, they'd get a lot more interest.....)

Best wishes to all,
Alison

Nicey replies: No I'm gutted to say I missed that. Seeing stuff being manufactured is one of the best things on TV. All too often it's confined to childrens programs, in the old days it was Playschool but now we have Tikkabilla which borrows heavily from Playschool. It has a clock with something different underneath each time (the NCOTAASD one always Weetabix under it, but then it is above the kitchen counter). Perhaps even more importantly it has windows (round, square and arched). Is it me or does the really ace stuff always happen through the arched window? The square window is a waste of time, and is only really there to make up the numbers.

Aunt Mabel (really Nurse Gladys Emmanuel), in Come Outside also has her fair share of visits to manufacturing and packaging sites, although she does tend to skip over some very important stages in manufacturing processes, often leaving it for me to explain to the younger members of staff how exactly crisps or some such thing are made. She also flies everywhere in her own light aircraft (with her dog), even to go down the shops which seems excessive as I think she lives not far from Tunbridge Wells.

And while we are on the subject of round windows, why is it that McVities feel it necessary to write the word 'Round' on their Round Rich Teas. Perhaps their roundness isn't self-evident to some people and they require that extra bit of reassurance. I would have thought that the mental prowess involved in being able to read the word 'Round' would presuppose the ability to recognise round things. If it was on there for the blind then it should be in braille like bleach bottles, and again the blind's powers of feeling the shape of round things are probably more highly developed than that of a sighted person.

Then again it might just be there to fill in the blank that would otherwise be there.

It was Teacakes and Politics we were talking about wasn't it? (I suspect I might have lost a few people here)

Dear Nicey,
Recently, I have noticed a hell of alot of talk about Tunnocks Teacakes on your site, and, so, I thought I should put in my two cents (or pence, depending on how continental/american you're feeling).
I don't get them. Marshmallow and biscuit has never appealed to me, Wagon Wheels make me want to throw up, and the marshmallow in teacakes is all gooey and icky. Maybe they're just not for me, but with everyone saying how great they were, I felt I needed to say something. I can't the only person who doesn't like them.
Cheers,
Kate

Nicey replies: Kate,

You're only playing into their hands. Look now there is another email up on the site about mallow based biscuits. Has anybody noticed the wonderful picture based review links I wonder?

Hello Nicey,
I’d like to share how my partner takes his tea because in the tea drinking world it takes all sorts and I think diversity should be celebrated. He has one enormous, pint-sized mug on the go all day. He will start the mug off about half an hour after waking up, and use 3 tea bags and skimmed milk. This will be topped up through the day with further bags, hot water and milk. The key to his tea enjoyment however, is to leave all the bags in so that at the end of the day there are about 7 in the bottom of the enormous mug. I can also tell you that he is a very happy soul.
Right then, being a high-powered lawyer in a very high profile PLC kind of organisation, I’m off now to brew up and grab a Tunnocks Tea Cake (see my previous post) and try that put-a-hole-on-either-side-of-the-teacake-and-blow-a-marshmallow-fountain trick so highly recommended by one of your previous correspondents.
Toodlepip
Jane Purdon

Nicey replies: Bit of a hoarder by the sounds of it, whilst celebrating it, I would watch for signs of this developing into a full blown mental condition.

Fab website- I just love it!
I have had a long relationship with the incomparable Tunnock's teacakes. As children my sister and I would take one out of its foil & dramatically smash it against our foreheads- that aim was for all of the chocolate on the top to smash into little pieces, with the minimum of mallow on forehead.
Needless to say tricky & lots of fun, but did (un)remarkably often result in sticky forehead.
So in my university years when secretary of Edinburgh University Ballroom Dancing society I KNEW the way to get people to sing up to our society was to entice them with a Tunnock's tea cake. So I wrote a nice begging letter to the factory (down the road in Uddingston) asking them for sponsorship money. They of course did not give us money- but wonder of wonders- they donated 50 catering size boxes of Tunnock's Teacakes. wow! were we pleased or what?! So the society's IT guy and I trundled off to the factory in his teeny 2CV to pick up our treasuerd 50 boxes. I never did get sick of them & still buy them for a treat.
By the way, since leaving home to go to university (in the cause of staying slim) I have never walked down the biscuit aisle of any supermarket- ever! So I still love the toffypops, uniteds and trio's of my childhood. However my fiance does not understand this! So for the sake of our future marriage & with the tutoring of ncotaasd I am going to re-ignite my interest in biscuits. Probably to the detriment of my waistline, though. Though I do work for Cadburys, so I dont have much hope really!
all the best,
Sophie

Nicey replies: Yes Tunnocks are utterly brilliant really, and they were very nice and helpful when we were writing the book. Be careful in that biscuit aisle, you have a lot of pent up biscuit tension there and it might get a bit graphic if you are suddenly re-exposed to them, especially in a public place.